PUZZLE GAME CONCEPT
Before theory crafting a puzzle game we set ourself a goal that we wanted to create a unique pair of mechanics that would be really easy to pick up and understand but when implemented in a puzzle there would be a large amount of possibility to catch the players our and make them rethink how they should be using the mechanics to push the player to think laterally, this want to create simple yet complex systems has been heavily inspired by the game snake bird
From our self defined constraints we decided on 2 core mechanics that we felt could produce an interesting range of puzzles
The first integral mechanic was the ability to move between three different periods of time this would work in a way that the player can only move 1 age at a time we feel that this will produce an interesting conflict of play when it comes to level design in the later stages,
The second mechanic works in conjunction with the ability to change between ages, and allows the player to shoot a object and “freeze” it in time, this means that the player can change to a different age and the objects that have been frozen will retain the state that the object had when it was frozen, we liked this concept because it had a decent scope in terms of puzzle possibilities
Edit:
we decided to carry this idea forward as a digital prototype. Click here to read more about the prototyping process.